Happy things, tasty food and good design

All posts filed under: Fruit and Vege / CSA box

Two months ago, The Honesty Box announced they would no longer be offering their home delivery service. The Honesty Box was my jams. We got their small fruit and vege box regularly, but they wanted to focus on their commercial service. Our little run was over. It was a little bit like, “It’s not you, it’s me”.

Cheesey leftovers We had quite the cheese fest in the weekend and ended up with 7 different kinds of cheese leftover. Leftover cheese!? What is that? I hear you ask. I know, it sounds strange to be the owner of leftover cheese. To be fair, we sampled 18 different kinds of cheese and most of them were finished. I’ll be posting more about the cheese fest later. We had a shit ton of crackers, baguettes and antipasto bits and pieces. I made 3 cups of chicken liver pâté for the occasion and have a little leftover. It is amazing spread on hot toast. If you’ve never eaten pâté on hot toast before, you are missing out. The moment that buttery goodness touches heat, it starts melting. It’s amazing. The Honest Truth This week The Honesty Box delivered spuds, kumara (sweet potato) and a big pumpkin among other goodies. This all screams SOUP to me. Since we had no soup last week, this week we’re having 3 kinds of soup! I’m cutting down on gluten for my Graves’ …

Another lovely box from The Honesty Box this week. It’s inspiring to get this bounty delivered to our door each week. I figure it’s not laziness, it’s making sure there’s plenty of nutritious stuff to eat each week. This is a better variety than I could have picked myself. The Koala and I were both impressed at the thoughtfully paper-bagged mushrooms. They arrived in perfect condition. We had two of them with dinner on the first night. Seasonal things come in fours, apparently: 4 portobello mushrooms 4 tamarillo 4 feijoa Delighted with yet another avocado. These things are having a long season this year and these tomatoes are still as good as in summer. Still, I’m finally carrying a jacket most days so soup weather is upon us. Here’s a guide to what we’re eating this week: BREAKFAST Porridge with sliced banana, chia and maple Fejioa and banana muffins and a steaming mug of tea Breakfast burrito with beans, scrambled egg, mushroom and guacamole Banana yogurt smoothie Turmeric and herb tomatoes on toast LUNCH Chickpea, tomato …

The Honesty Box delivers again! We’re most excited about the two tamarillo and two portobello. The Koala ate a tamarillo (ahem, his tamarillo) immediately after I took this photo. Quite likely, he’ start eyeing up my tamarillo and I’ll either split it with him or let him have it. I am an older sister and he is a younger brother and it was like that in both our families. The Koala’s big brother and I would save and The Koala and my little sister would feast. Then start eyeing up their older sibling’s uneaten bounty. Was it like that in your family? Tamarillo are still a like bit finger guts to me, but I admit the intense savoury flavour is exciting and unique. They’re still too rare for me to to cook with but I’ll work up to that when the novelty wears off. Feijoa season is intense and short here in Auckland. Our landlord had our feijoa tree removed (for reasons that baffle me). So we’re grateful for any feijoa that come our way. For those …

We are getting this The Honesty Box delivered every week now. For $39.40 including delivery to Auckland central, our F&V small is 8kg (sometimes 10kg) of fresh fruit and vegetables. Shared between The Koala and I, this needs careful planning to eat everything before the next box arrives. I’ve been testing out gluten-free recipes and I think avoiding processed food is good practice regardless of my health concerns. I’m seeing an Endocrinologist (for the first time) today and hopefully there will be time to discuss diet and Graves Disease with him. I’m fairly adamant at this stage I want to try medication and diet only before than permanent options like surgery or radiation. If possible, I’d like to stay away from radiation. It’s starting to get cooler but since we’re still receiving salad ingredients, we shall eat salad this week. Here’s a guide to what we’re eating this week: BREAKFAST Avocado and tomato on toast Banana and peanut butter smoothie Cumin hash brown with a fried egg and grilled tomatoes Fruit and vege juice and soft boiled eggs Rice noodle soup …

Today’s giveaway is open to residents of Auckland, NZ only as delivery can only be to a central city address. I’ve reviewed a bunch of produce boxes in Auckland this year and my favourite of the bunch is a small company called The Honesty Box. Now it’s your turn to test them out, on the house 🙂 I am happy to announce as part of Bunny Eats Design’s 3rd year anniversary celebrations, two lucky readers will receive a box of goodies each from The Honesty Box. Johnny from The Honesty Box has kindly offered up two great prizes. The F&V Small for home (as pictured in my reviews The Honesty Box here, here and here). About a 50/50 split of fruit and vegetables. Great for couples, a small family, small flats and apartments. Excellent value with the best quality seasonal produce. Corporate Classic to a central city office of your choosing. The most popular size – perfect for small to mid-sized offices, or as a mid-week top up. 28 pieces of top quality, fresh fruit. The Classic suits offices …

I’m testing out a few CSA and produce delivery companies in Auckland. If you are curious about CSA and like see what other people around the world are getting each week in their boxes, please check out at the weekly link party What’s In The Box over at Heather’s blog In Her Chucks. First impression Once again, a branded The Honesty Box arrived with a smart but simple typographic print. There was 10.5kg of produce in this box and at $37.50NZ including delivery, the average cost was about $3.5NZ per kilo. Good value. My first impression was that this box was very optimistic of the season. It’s early spring yet eggplants, capsicum and strawberries!? Amazing! No doubt, grown in greenhouses, it’s pretty awesome to see these in the box. It should be noted that the vegetable and fruit ratio was almost even this time round at 54% vegetables, 46% fruit. Vegetables 5.8kg Fancy red lettuce x 1 Celery x 1 Baby potatoes x 25 Eggplant x 1 Avocado x 1 Capsicum (red pepper) x 1 Carrots x 2 Onions x 2 Kumara …

Happy Friday the 13th! Last week, a coworker and I devised a plan to dress up in black today and order Hell’s Pizza for lunch. Almost everyone at work agreed to join in so it must have been a good idea. Hope you enjoy yourself a kooky-fun day too! Today’s slightly morbid, semi-gory post is in response to this post. “Way, way back in the late ’80s, a young boy at Glenholme Primary School in Rotorua, New Zealand accidentally slammed his fingers in the classroom door. I will never forget it because he also happened to be holding a tamarillo at that precise moment. The horrific tamarillo mess will be forever etched into my mind. As the news spread that someone had squished their fingers in the door, the fact that he was also holding a tamarillo dropped away. To our active imaginations, it was finger guts that bloodied the classroom entrance.” Until I shared my tamarillo memory, I didn’t realise that tamarillo were uncommon in other parts of the world. A little research suggests …

Way, way back in the late ’80s, a young boy at Glenholme Primary School in Rotorua, New Zealand accidentally slammed his fingers in the classroom door. I will never forget it because he also happened to be holding a tamarillo at that precise moment. The horrific tamarillo mess will be forever etched into my mind. As the news spread that someone had squished their fingers in the door, the fact that he was also holding a tamarillo dropped away. To our active imaginations, it was finger guts that bloodied the classroom entrance. I have honestly never bought a tamarillo in my life. I guess subconsciously, finger guts are pretty far down on the list of my preferred fruit. It’s a shame really, because I just found out that The Koala adores tamarillos. This winter, I’m testing out a few CSA and produce delivery companies in Auckland. If you are curious about CSA and like see what other people around the world are getting each week in their boxes, please check out at the weekly link party What’s …

Since the success of my first pulled pork, I’m doing another twice the size this week with plenty of leftovers to play with. The Koala does not mind one bit! This week we received a whole pumpkin from our F&V small box from The Honesty Box. Sharing a 2.4kg pumpkin between two means it features heavily in this week’s menu. I’m not a fan of pumpkin but I know what I like and as long as it’s cooked with plenty of aromatic spices I’m good to go. The pouch of herbs will be thrown willy nilly into soups and stews. The Honesty Box Menu 1 Items in bold are from The Honesty Box. Orange pulled pork with smashed garlic, onion and bay leaves Pulled pork rolls with lettuce, red onion and sour cream Pulled Pork Tortillas (see notes below) Rice noodles with pulled pork and broccoli Spiced Pumpkin and kumara soup with smoked cheddar toasties Pumpkin and chickpea curry with garlic, onion and tomato paste. Served on rice with a dollop of sour cream Sirloin steak medium rare …

This winter, I’m testing out a few CSA and produce delivery companies in Auckland. If you are curious about CSA and like see what other people around the world are getting each week in their boxes, please check out at the weekly link party What’s In The Box over at Heather’s blog In Her Chucks. The Lowdown The Honesty Box has a great name and refers to unmanned roadside stalls all over the New Zealand countryside, where you purchase produce by leaving money behind in the honesty box. I don’t know if this is common in other countries but around here, it’s looked upon fondly, though dishonesty is slowly taking over and honesty boxes are less and less common. With The Honesty Box, the name actually refers to their corporate programme where companies can purchase a box of fruit for the office and employees can buy fruit at work by way of honest box. A healthy alternative to the chocolate bar and chips snack box. The Honesty Box also offer home deliveries which is what we went are …

We didn’t receive a lot of vegetables in our Naturally Organic this week so our meal plan reflects this. Hope to stretch a few meals so we can have leftovers for lunch but it might not happen. Plenty of fruit to snack on this week though! Naturally Organic Menu 3 Items in bold are from our Naturally Organic box. Hoisin pulled pork with apple slaw on floury baps (pictured) Chicken and leek soup with garlic butter toast Bangers and mash with kiwi caramalised onions (see recipe below) with sautéed garlic silverbeet Spicy udon with beef, onion, egg and cabbage, topped with pinenuts Pumpkin and silverbeet curry with home made roti Orange roasted chicken drumsticks with pumpkin and carrot Apple hand pies with butterscotch sauce and ice cream Butterscotch and banana smoothie I’d like to share a quickie recipe with you that I whip out for bangers and mash occasions. Call it a lazyman’s chutney. It’s chunky and delicious. The flavours of caramalised onion, kiwi and butter work really well together and this would be great with steak, sausages, chops or chicken. This …

This winter, I’m testing out a few CSA and produce delivery companies in Auckland. I have already tried Foodbox.co.nz and now I am trying is Naturally Organic. Naturally Organic is a market based in Albany, Auckland and their produce boxes are only a small part of what they offer. Unlike other companies that have a set delivery day, Naturally Organic offer 6 day delivery. Check their website out for specific details for your area, but I can order up to 7 days in advance and get same day delivery Monday to Friday if I order by 9.30am. First impression Our first Two Person Box was overwhelming and the One Person Box wasn’t really enough so this round I requested the Two Person Box with more vegetables than fruit. Unfortunately, this didn’t happen and once again we received heaps of fruit. 44 pieces of fruit! As before the produce is of excellent organic quality and the box was huge but felt a bit empty. I ordered some chicken this week and these were were individually wrapped in …